Firefighters made steady progress as they fought the slow-moving brush fires near Yosemite National Park and Mammoth Mountain on Sunday.
It started on Thursday afternoon from Highway 395 in Mono County. By dusk it had grown to over 500 acres, spanning most of Monocity and Randy Canyon.
However, as weather improved on Saturday evening, the highway headed for one-way traffic, and the Mono County Sheriff’s Office downgraded the evacuation order to an advisory, allowing residents to return home. As of 10am on Sunday, the fire was sitting on 726 acres.
Overnight, firefighters with CAL Fires, INYO National Forest and other local departments raised containment from 0% to 15%. In AN, authorities described the fire behavior as “minimal and smoldering as creeping up throughout the majority of the day.” But they said “important work” remains to contain the flames.
Containment began along the northern edge of the fire as the bulldozer cleaned the lines of the brush and stopped its spread. According to Inyo National Forest spokesman Lisa Cox, there are lines where the topography is trapped along most of the surroundings remaining, and there are lines where the containment lines are trapped along most of the remaining boundaries.
“You can’t get a dozer on the west side of the fire,” Cox said. “It’s a very rough and sturdy territory.”
On Sunday morning there were helicopters, 16 engines and 686 staff members assigned to the fire.
With mild weather forecasts over the next few days, firefighters are not expecting additional road closures or evacuation orders.
Mono Lake is above 6,300 feet above sea level and reflects the Sierra across a surface close to 70 square miles, but is for hikers, kayakers and birdwatchers.
As visitors headed towards the area over the holiday weekend, Cox urged patience and caution.
“Slow down. Don’t hurry. … We have traffic backup,” she said. “We still have firefighters working along the entire highway.”
Infire is one of the state’s five active flames and is one of 27 that began within last week as the warmth of California’s fire season begins to warmer.
